For often it is God’s will that His elect should be conscious of their misery and so He withdraws His help from them a little — and no more than that is needed to make us recognize our limitations very quickly. They then realize that this is a way of testing them, for they gain a clear perception of their shortcomings, and sometimes they derive more pain from finding that, in spite of themselves, they are still grieving about earthly things, and not very important things either, than from the matter which is troubling them.
– St. Teresa of Avila